Biography: Stephen K. Doyle

[Stephen K. Doyle]

My hometown is Bethesda, MD, which was, during my childhood, a (not so small) bedroom community immediately adjacent to the Northwest border of Washington, DC. I spent my entire childhood in Bethesda, and except for a couple years living in Auburn, AL while attending Auburn University and a like period living in Hampton, VA while attending Old Dominion University, I have lived within a few miles of my hometown the bulk of my adult life. I currently reside in Wheaton, MD.

I have worked as a laborer, a bricklayer, a courier, and as a forklift operator. I drove a flatbed delivery truck for a lumber supply company. For a small, custom-built furniture maker in the Washington, DC area, I have worked as a salesman and furniture designer, then as the Director of Sales, and currently, as the Database Administrator, which database I designed and created from scratch.

Immediately after my High School graduation, I enrolled in the School of Architecture at Auburn University, from which I moved on to American University, in Washington, DC. Both of these educational experiences ended disastrously, as my actual major at these two universities was “Not Attending Class.” (Yes, I had VERY indulgent parents.)

I began my REAL college education in 1987, attending night school at Montgomery College, in Rockville, MD. After earning my Associates degree in engineering there, I moved on to the University of Maryland at College Park, from which I was graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering. At Maryland, I was a laboratory assistant in the Aerospace Engineering Design Lab. I was a member of the Golden Key National Honor Society, and Sigma Gamma Tau (the National Aerospace Engineering Honor Society in the United States), and was a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Subsequent to my graduation from the University of Maryland, I attended Old Dominion University, in Norfolk, VA, enrolled in the Master of Engineering in Experimental Methods program in the School of Aerospace Engineering. During my time at Old Dominion, I worked for a couple months in the control room at the Langley Full-scale (wind) Tunnel prior to assuming my post as a Graduate Research Assistant in the Model Systems Branch at NASA Langley Research Center, in Hampton, VA. My work at NASA culminated in the publication of what is, at Old Dominion University, the equivalent to my Master’s Thesis: An Optical Technique for Measuring Unsteady Aerodynamic Loads, which was published in the AIAA Journal, and which I presented at the Automation and Instrumentation Society (AIS) annual conference, in May, 2002.

I originally became interested in the assassination of John Kennedy while reading Lifton’s Best Evidence and Livingstone’s and Groden’s High Treason, and Livingstone’s High treason 2. After then “putting down” the assassination for the many years I was in college, my interest was renewed by a repeat reading of High Treason 2 about three years ago. Since then, I think I’ve read about 30 books on various aspects of the assassination, plus more of the articles and essays available online than I could possibly count. I have only recently begun reading the discussions on this forum.

I have never been an educator, and I have never published any research on the assassination. I am, however, currently working on research (that is not ready for publication yet), in which I am applying terrestrial, close-range photogrammetry in a study of the Zapruder film.

I am not likely known to any of the members of this forum, save Dr. James H. Fetzer, with whom I exchanged a couple short e-mail correspondences last year, and who was quite gracious and encouraging to me when I betrayed my near complete ignorance of the Zapruder film at the time, and Don Roberdeau, who was equally as gracious and encouraging, and who spent a great deal of time assisting me during the early stages of my current research, answering all the questions I asked, even though he did not know me until I sent him an unsolicited e-mail earlier this year. Don, if you are reading this, “Hi!”

An Interesting but Worthless Biographical Tidbit:

Growing up in Bethesda, MD, I used to play with a couple friends who lived on the next street in a house I could get to by climbing the fence in the back yard of the house across the street from my own house. I was very young, and cannot remember much about them except their names (which I’ll not mention here, as it is not important to this story), that they lived in a big, white clapboard house, they had a couple Saint Bernard dogs, they used to brag that a “Kennedy” used to visit their house, and that their last name was Sheridan. I have a vague recollection of their parents, and remember that they were very nice.

Reading Joan Mellens’ excellent book, A Farewell to Justice, this past spring, I read with interest her revelations (and speculations, perhaps) about the activities of a Walter Sheridan, confidant of Robert Kennedy, whose name I had not previously encountered in reading about the Kennedy Assassination. Wondering if this Walter Sheridan could possibly be the “Mr. Sheridan” I remember from my youth, I found his obituary on the Internet and was able to confirm that Walter Sheridan and “Mr. Sheridan” were one and the same.

Edited July 12, 2006 by Stephen K. Doyle

[Evan Burton]

Welcome Stephen!

I don't normally get involved with the JFK stuff here, but nice to see someone with some strong aeronautical engineering background here.

My advice to you is: enjoy!

Cheers,

Evan

Oh - I do have to ask... what's a "bedroom community"?